People in Hanover with a high school degree or less are eight times more likely to live below the poverty level.

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Melody Ramsburg, right, struggles to financially support her three kids as a single mother. She hopes that an education at the Milton Hershey School will propel her two older kids, Kiana Shifflett, 17, and Zachary Shifflett, 15, to pursue a college education and break the cycle of poverty.(Photo: Dan Rainville, The Evening Sun)Buy Photo

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Fifteen percent of Hanover's population lives in poverty, according to recent census data.

More than one third of single-mother families are estimated to live in poverty.

This is not an uncommon family situation in Hanover, as about 2,200 people, or 15 percent of the population, live in poverty, according to recent census data. Comparatively, about 10 percent of York County residents live in poverty.

Despite the financial challenges, Ramsburg is determined to give her children a better future through a focus on their education. A person who ceases their education with a high school degree or equivalent in Hanover is almost eight times more likely to live below the poverty level than someone who finishes college, according to census data.

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People in Hanover with a high school degree or less are eight times more likely to live in poverty, according to recent census data.(Photo: Sean Heisey, York Daily Record)

A crew member at McDonald’s for about seven months, Ramsburg is saving up for a security deposit to find a place to call home in Hanover. Her older two children — Kiana Shifflett, 17, and Zachary Shifflett, 15 — attend the Milton Hershey School, a cost-free, private boarding school for low-income families in Hershey.

It is the family's hope that the kids' education at Milton Hershey will propel them to pursue a college education and break the cycle of poverty. The school emphasizes college and career readiness, and each high school graduate has the opportunity to obtain up to $87,500 in scholarship money to continue their education.

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The family’s financial instability caused them to move often. In Hanover, about 79 percent of the population lived in the same house as the year prior compared to 87 percent in York County overall, according to census estimates.

The poverty line for a family of four with three children under 18 is about $24,000.

Ramsburg has lived in the New Oxford motel for about six months after staying with a family member in Hanover who moved. The motel room consists of two queen beds and is cluttered with the family’s belongings — the rest of which is in a storage unit, another expense Ramsburg has to worry about.

“(The children) need more room, but it serves the purpose,” she said.

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Melody Ramsburg and her 4-year-old son, James, currently live at the Cross Keys Motor Inn in New Oxford. Financial instability has caused Ramsburg and her three children to move often.(Photo: Dan Rainville, The Evening Sun)

Ramsburg earns about $500 every other week, and the motel costs $240 weekly. Medical assistance and food stamps are essential for the family to get by.

Single parenting while living below the poverty line is a job in itself for Ramsburg. Kiana and Zachary’s father has been out of the picture for some time, according to Ramsburg, while the father of Ramsburg’s 4-year-old son James died a few years ago.

When Kiana and Zachary were attending public school, Ramsburg could not afford to go out and buy new school clothes for them. After-school activities were out of the question as well because Ramsburg did not have a car at the time.

“For me to have gone out and bought them school clothes, it would have meant not being able to pay that week’s rent,” she said.

Without a co-parent, there is no one else to manage time or finances in the family. In Hanover, more than one third of families with single mothers are estimated to live in poverty, according to recent census data.

“Sometimes, you want another person just to be like, ‘Oh, Zachary’s report card came. This is what’s going on,’” Ramsburg said. “You like to share those things. That immediate person, or whatever, it’s not really there. It’s just pretty much you to take care of that.”

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Ramsburg grew up in Hanover and attended South Western High School. She got pregnant with Kiana at 17 and dropped out of high school. (She earned her GED a few years ago.)

Ramsburg gave birth to Zachary a year later.

It was a “confusing time,” she said. The circumstances caused her to put her education on the back burner.

“Mainly, I just focused on trying to take care of them and trying to be the best mom I could be to them.”

As a result, Ramsburg encourages her children to wait to start a family.

“I think that, if I would have waited, I probably would be able to have provided a better life for them because I would have been more stable going into the situation,” she said.

Stability has been hard to come by for the family. A few years ago, they ended up in a domestic violence shelter.

During that time, the family lost nearly everything they had accumulated over the years.

“It was just an unsettling situation that sent us there in the first place, although I was really grateful as a mom to be able to have some place like that to go to.”

It was hard, said Kiana, who was 14 years old at the time.

But Kiana was able to draw some positives from the experience, like how the shelter prepared her for group living at the Milton Hershey School.

“I got to know more people, even if it wasn’t the best circumstance,” she said.

The family was hit hardest financially when Ramsburg lost her job about two weeks into her pregnancy with James. She struggled to find a job during that time, and the family moved constantly.

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Melody Ramsburg, second from left, lives in this room at Cross Keys Motor Inn with her youngest child, James, 4, far right. Melody's two other children, Kiana Shifflett, 17, and Zachary Shifflett, 15, are students at the Milton Hershey School, a cost-free, private boarding school for low-income families.(Photo: Dan Rainville, The Evening Sun)

Zachary and Kiana switched from Hanover to South Western school districts at one point.

“It was hard because we always felt, ‘Oh, not everybody has to move this much,’” Kiana said. “And some people, their parents are still together, so they have enough so they don’t have to keep moving.”

About two years ago, James’ father died, compounding the challenges for the family.

“Things were rocky before then, but that’s pretty much, I think, when emotionally I hit like rock bottom so everything else seemed to kind of fall apart around us as well,” Ramsburg said.

Through it all, Ramsburg preached to her children that everything would be OK if they banded together through the adversity. Because of financial limitations, nights in playing board games or watching movies was not unusual for the family.

“I think that’s the main thing, like now that they’re older that they appreciate, too, and I think they do believe that if we stick together, we’ll be all right,” she said.

It has been a difficult adjustment to have the older kids away at Milton Hershey for a large chunk of the year. She texts and messages them all the time.

“You don’t always get to give them a kiss or a hug that night,” Ramsburg said.

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Ramsburg speaks evenly and openly about the family’s struggles. But, like most parents, she perks up when talking about her children. She’s confident Kiana, in 11th grade, will flourish.

“She’s got a really good head on her shoulders,” Ramsburg said. “She’s very smart.”

Kiana loves making people laugh, she would give you the shirt off her back, she loves kids — Ramsburg went on and on.

But Ramsburg was uncertain about her bright daughter's future. Sending Kiana off to college did not seem like a possibility for the family.

“I would love to be able to say I could do that with no problem, but (Kiana) has the opportunity to be so much, and I absolutely had no idea how to help her flourish in that because she’s going to need degrees and extra schooling,” Ramsburg said.

Kiana Shifflett, 17, works in a classroom at the Milton Hershey School. She wants to pursue a career in nursing.(Photo: Submitted, Milton Hershey School)

Census data shows that levels of education attained for Hanover residents correlates with living below the poverty line. College graduates, age 25 years and older, make up about two percent of impoverished Hanover residents, while the percent of those who did not extend their education beyond a high school degree or equivalent is about 13 percent. People who did not complete their high school education make up about 16 percent of residents in poverty.

Ramsburg was aware of the Milton Hershey School because some relatives attended. However, it was Kiana who took the reins to research the boarding school.

After touring the school with Kiana and Zachary, Ramsburg and her children made the decision to apply.

But when Ramsburg received the phone call accepting their enrollment, she didn’t want to give Kiana and Zachary the news.

“I had changed my mind,” she said. “I didn’t change my mind about wanting them to have those opportunities, but I didn’t want them to go either.”

Ramsburg described allowing her children to attend a school where they lived more than an hour away from home as “the biggest sacrifice.”

She joked with her children that they will have to live with her until they are 40 years old to make up for the lost time.

“But the opportunities, the things they’ve been able to do so far that they would’ve never gotten to do staying around here have just been worth the sacrifice, I think,” Ramsburg said. “The futures that they’re going to be able to have because of the sacrifices we’re making now is just definitely worth it.”

Students at Milton Hershey can earn scholarship money through good behavior and an approved post-graduation plan, which can include a university, community college or trade school. The school continues to offer guidance and support to graduates as they continue their education.

Kiana hopes her education will steer her toward becoming a nurse. She hearkened her interest back to making cards and singing for nursing home patients when she was younger.

“I think I like the idea of giving back and helping people,” she said.

Kiana lives in a student home with 11 other girls and a houseparent couple, her support system away from home. She and Zachary come home to visit their mom about once a month.

Ramsburg is also focused on advancing the education of her youngest son James, whom she described as energetic and, like most 4 year olds, “obsessed with SpongeBob.” She is most motivated to get back to Hanover to live in the South Western School District for his education.

All the while, Kiana is taking college prep classes. Her favorite class at Milton Hershey is math, although she acknowledges it can be challenge.

But challenges are OK with Kiana — in school and in life. She explained she has gained a lot in pushing through hard times.

“Not everything has to be brought back to the past … We can move on,” she said.